“That’s a tame one.” He tried to focus on the cold. To wrap himself in discomfort and chase away the fire searing through his veins. It wasn’t the story that had him hornier than he’d been in ages; it was her reaction. “Disgusting, isn’t it?”
“I… um… Wow. What if you got caught? There were really people watching?”
This was doing exactly the opposite of what he hoped, and he couldn’t find the desire to change it. “Is that really such a big deal? They were enjoying themselves. Participating at a distance. Stroking—” He bit off the words before he could make things worse. He forced his hands into his pockets, rather than give into the impulse to drag a thumb over her bottom lip.
Summoning the last of his willpower, he reached past lust and desire and the urge to press her against a nearby wall and find out what she was or wasn’t wearing under her dress. He grabbed the point of the conversation instead. “Anyway, that’s how it works. Some people already know how to perform in public, but anyone can learn.”
“And that’s how you teach your actors to get over the camera fright?”
“Public blowjobs? Sometimes.” He ground his teeth, to keep any more unfiltered words from coming out. She obviously didn’t have a problem with the conversation, but he promised Mercy…
“There’s more to it than that.” Susan was like a dog with a bone.
He winced mentally at the poor choice of words. “There’s a lot more to it.”
“Teach me.”
“No.”
“Just like that?” Her lower lip stuck out in a pout.
Which shouldn’t be enticing, but fuck if he didn’t want to nip at her mouth. “Preemptively and completely. No.”
“It’s because of Mercy, isn’t it?”
“It is.” Andrew wondered if this was as much about keeping his distance from Susan at this point—removing the temptation—but it sounded as good as any answer.
“Because after all these years, you love her and would do anything for her?”
The oversimplification of the situation helped him grasp more sensibility. “Sure. If it makes you stop asking, why the fuck not?”
“You’re right.” She shrugged out of his coat and handed it over. “I don’t want to put you at odds with my sister.” She passed him. “Now that I know what I’m asking for, I’ll find someone else to help me.”
Manipulative, clever, seductive— “Like whom?” Simply because his solution to what she wasasking for sounded like it revolved around public sex, he wouldn’t be the first one to flinch.
“You’re not the only person who understands stage fright in its various incarnations. I’m sure someone out there would be happy to help a girl like me get over it.”
“You’re baiting me.”
She turned to face him again. “Who? Me?” The tiny smirk that danced on her face both infuriated and enticed him.
“It’s not going to work.”
“And if I ask the wrong person, and that someone takes advantage of my naïveté, it’s on me.”
“Technically, it’s on them, though I suspect you’d suffer more. I’m calling your bluff. Go find someone else. Have fun with that.”
“I’m not bluffing.” The pout and wide eyes and bid for pity vanished from her expression. “Have you ever wanted anything so badly, you could taste it in everything? Every breath. Every touch. Every sound. So much that it haunted you and refused to leave you alone?”
Reason kicked on in time to point out he shouldn’t go with the facetious answer. He swallowed his, You. Right now. “You won’t like how the process works.”
“I’ve practiced several hours a day for more than fifteen years. Forgoing sleep. Giving up a social life. Stumbling into the studio at four in the morning, to fit it into my schedule, and spending the rest of the day sore for it. I don’t have to like the details, as long as it gets the results I want.”
“And doesn’t compromise your morals?”
She drew her lips into a thin line. “I don’t think you have a good grasp on what those are.” Gone was the timid girl, and the determined woman in front of him was no less alluring.
If she saw this as a business transaction, it wouldn’t be anything else. That would make it easier.